Ben & Jerry’s: Cold war
Indigenous rights belong to those who are the indigenous peoples, defined by Wikipedia as “the original people of a land that has been conquered and colonized by outsiders.” The native people of the land of Israel are of course the Jews. Although our homeland has been conquered and occupied by the Romans, Crusaders, Arabs and others, we are still here on our sacred ground fighting for our native rights.
By trampling on our inalienable rights and siding with the Arab colonizers, Ben & Jerry’s proves yet again how morally confused they are.
Now they declare (“Ben & Jerry’s melts under BDS pressure to stop selling in settlements,” July 20) that they will boycott the communities in parts of Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria where we, the native people, live, but will continue to peddle their unhealthy product only in those areas of our homeland where Jews cannot live.
If that is their misguided decision, I suggest that in true Ben & Jerry’s style, they add flavors celebrating their immoral stand that will be popular in those areas, such as Bus-Bombing Berry, Pay-to-Slay Pecan, Qassam Rocket Raspberry, Incendiary Balloon Boysenberry, Terror Tunnel Tutti Frutti, Pineapple ExPLOsion, Chubby Hamas... the possibilities are endless and exciting – although they all leave a bad taste in your mouth.
FAY REDNICK
Jerusalem
So International Ben & Jerry’s won’t market their products in the so-called “occupied Palestinian territories” (OPT). This is being hailed as a great victory for the BDS movement.
Wrong. If this is the best BDS can do after years of furious activism, we, Israel, are in good shape indeed. For now, Israel Ben and Jerry’s will continue to market the ice cream everywhere and there are other delicious brands as well, such as Haagen-Dazs, Turkey Hill, the healthier Halo Top (only 280-360 calories per pint; try their Black Cherry – unbelievable).
As usual, the Palestinians will suffer most – another BDS-inspired nail in their delusional coffin that “Palestine will be free from the river to the sea.” Palestine will begin to be free only when their delusional leaders climb out of their black holes, relinquish their grandiose dreams and perhaps have a pint of ice cream. Live a little rather than promote death and destruction.
YIGAL HOROWITZ, PHD
Beersheba
What a juxtaposition. The same day that Ben & Jerry’s announces the boycott of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, our peace partner, the PA, is charging one of its citizens with the crime of “normalizing with Israel” for performing in Ariel to a group of Palestinian workers (whom the PA called “settlers and prostitutes”).
Now that the ice cream maker has set themselves up as arbiters of all that’s good, maybe they can also wade into other land disputes across the globe, and free up the folk at ICC to begin learning to make ice cream.
DAVID SMITH
Ra’anana
My guess is that Ben & Jerry’s will ultimately realize their mistake after getting bogged down in legal, financial and image repercussions that they – in their innocent and misguided idealism – didn’t anticipate, and will abandon their effort, like Airbnb did, to discriminate against certain Jews.
This will harm the racist BDS movement, as other companies wishing to harm Israel with a boycott because they are imbued with irrational falsehood-based Israel hatred will learn the lesson and realize that it is in their own best interest not to act out their fantasies.
Meanwhile, I urge all American readers – Jews and Christians – to stand up for the truth and what is morally right. Stop buying Ben & Jerry’s (there are so many yummy and more economical alternatives in US supermarkets) and write to that company and to your congressmen to make your feelings known.
ELAINE MILLER
Ashdod
Can’t change the past by denying it
Most of Palestine is comprised of the Kingdom of Jordan. This is undeniable reality – just look at any map from the early 20th century. Moreover, the largest population group in Jordan is people who identify as “Palestinians.”
The King of Jordan would like people to have collective amnesia (“Abdullah seeks to bury ‘Jordan is Palestine’ idea,” (July 20). Apparently he thinks that changing a name (from “Transjordan” to “Jordan,” from “Judea and Samaria” to “the West Bank,” etc.) is all one needs to do to wipe the past slate clean and then replace it with a “truth” you find more convenient.)
Sorry, Your Highness. Some of us have minds and memories and will not agree so easily to deny the truth to suit your agenda. Jordan is in fact Palestine. Deal with it. Embracing reality – not avoiding it – is the best way to resolve real problems.
ISAAC MEYER
Ma’aleh Adumim
Good rally? Not really
Elisha Wiesel is a well-meaning Jew who was trying to do something good for the Jewish people in pushing for the recent DC rally against antisemitism. However, he fails to make a good case for a failed rally. (“Washington rally vs. antisemitism wasn’t perfect, but necessary,” July 20).
No rally is better than a failed rally! From the beginning this rally was doomed to fail for many reasons. First, the Gaza war was long over. The Gaza war had only one IDF casualty (one is too many). The soldier killed was not killed in combat. And the anti-Israeli/Jewish rhetoric had passed. In any event there was no strong emotional element to a rally from that perspective.
The uptick in antisemitism in the US is alarming, but thank God we do not live in an overtly antisemitic environment. Even a recent local Five Towns rally, which was considered a success, was missing the haredi community and many from the less affiliated community. I suspect that the rally was called a rally against antisemitism and not a rally to support Israel in its recent Gaza war in order to attract haredim. In that sense it also failed. The haredim did not come. They would have come had they really felt threatened.
A DC rally in the summer excludes Jewish schools that always bring thousands of students to such a rally. DC is a big trip for most people. Working adults must give up a full day to attend. This rally lacked an immediate pressing emotional context to draw those people
The last successful rally was the 2002 or 2003 DC rally during the second intifada. At that time there were regular terrorist attacks with horrible images seen by everyone in the media. It took place during the school year and there was a lot of preparation by the organized Jewish community, including outstanding PR. The Soviet Jewry demonstrations during the oppressive years were also well-organized and well-publicized and had all the ingredients necessary to bring our schools and working men and women.
You always need an umbrella Jewish group that includes the polychromatic elements of the Jewish community to actively advocate for such an event. I do not mean to belittle Elisha Wiesel’s efforts. He deserves a lot of credit for putting himself up front to support the rally.
By invoking his late father he does him an injustice. (“When Nazi tanks surrounded Warsaw, my father related in a rare moment of frustration, the Jews were in shul arguing over who should get ‘shishi,’ the honor of being called up third to the Torah”). None of us know whether Elie Wiesel would have endorsed a rally that was doomed to failure. And by calling those who opposed the rally “cynics,” he does an injustice to them and besmirches himself.
HESHIE BILLET
Rabbi Emeritus YIW (Woodmere)
Famed American Jewish writer Cynthia Ozick astutely noted that “Universalism is the Jews’ particularism.” That observation has been repeatedly validated, perhaps no more so than recently.
The Statement of Inclusion for the July 11 “No Fear” Washington DC rally against antisemitism noted that the sponsoring “coalition will not tolerate expressions of racism, Islamophobia, misogyny, classism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, or any other hate.” Noble comprehensive virtue signaling, though it’s highly unlikely that many proponents of such hatreds would have shown up at the rally. Unfortunately, in the event, not many other people did, either.
Foreign Minister Yair Lapid’s definition of antisemitism was even more expansive: “anyone who hates so much that they want to kill and eliminate” the objects of their hatred. That, at once, greatly expanded the potential antisemitic cohort, while simultaneously shrinking the criterion for inclusion, to genocidal intent.
Paraphrasing Hillel, if Jews cannot bring themselves to narrowly focus on a wave of antisemitism that is growing ever more brazen and pervasive, who will join them in condemning that? If Jews don’t care enough to push back hard against antisemitic expression in the Congress, the universities, NGOs, print, broadcast and social media, etc., what possible prospect is there for it to stop?
The planners of the “No Fear” rally surely meant well, but in trying to please all possible partners, while eschewing other, far more willing, participants, they could not help but fail. A lesson to be learned: a too “big tent,” without solid supporting poles, is bound to collapse.
RICHARD D. WILKINS
Syracuse, New York
Blackmail? Return to sender
Tisha Be’av was Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s first real test – whether he could stand up to the attempted “blackmail” threats from Hamas, the PA, various anti-Israel elements around the world, and the underminers within his own coalition, by giving in to the demands to not allow Jews to go up to Har Habayit.
Bennett passed the test superbly (“PM backs Jewish rights on Temple Mount,” July 19). A large number of Jews went, security was present and prevented any serious rioting, world war was not declared by Moslem extremists.
Congratulations and thank you, PM Bennett.
JOSEPH BERGER
Netanya
Free the ‘Post’
The editorial “Free the Kotel” (July 18) has proven again that The Jerusalem Post sometimes serves as a mouthpiece for the Reform and their ilk, and as a loudspeaker against religion and orthodoxy.
Unfortunately, the public in Israel is ignorant of the wastelands the Reform Movement leaves in its wake wherever it goes. Just look at the assimilation rate in the US and the point is proved. Looking for new areas to conquer, they find fertile ground in the State of Israel with its naivety and backing by an anti-religious Supreme Court that, under the founding principles of Aaron Barak, decided that whatever they feel is right is the truth for all of humanity and act with haughtiness and aggression in that direction.
The Kotel is just an example. A group of people not believing in God, or in a God that has control over our lives, was rewarded a slice of the Kotel for “egalitarian” prayers. They are not praying to God so to whom are they praying? What is the significance of the Kotel and the Temple Mount to them? (That question may also be asked to countless Israelis who are not being educated in their own history, culture and religion, which is a different point.)
I call upon the powers that be to “Free the Post” and bring more objectivity back to the written media.
JOSEPH TUCKER
Jerusalem
In his letter of July 19, Barry Newman expressed his opposition to mixed prayer in proximity to the Kotel, stating, “Conduct there should emulate... that which was the norm during the periods in which the Temple was operative.” He assumes that there was no mixed prayer during the Temple times.
However, in his description of the Second Temple in the fifth volume of his work entitled Against Apion, Josephus Flavius describes the ezrat nashim (women’s court) as the area in which men and their wives came together to pray. Josephus Flavius wrote not from hearsay but from his own experience.
Just as during Second Temple times there was a place in the Temple Courts for men and women to pray together, so it should be that in our own times there be a place at the Kotel designated for mixed prayer.
NINA SHEFTMAN
Carmiel
Regarding “Orthodox activists disrupt egalitarian section prayers” (July 18), I regard myself a religious Zionist and the actions of the “Religious Zionist” camp besmirch all true religious Zionists. Davka on the very day that we remember that the Second Temple and Jerusalem were destroyed because of baseless hatred, self-styled “Religious Zionists” demonstrated baseless hatred instead of tolerance and love towards their fellow Jews.
I wish to disassociate myself from the so-called “Religious Zionists” and their political ambitions, and hope that all true religious Zionists – and, indeed, the majority of the citizens of the State of Israel and Jews around the world – feel the same way.
IAN BANKS
Bet Shemesh
Take the Mount into account
Following Israel’s liberation of eastern Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria (areas dubbed “The West Bank”) from 19 years of illegal Jordanian occupation, Israel graciously allowed the Jordanian Waqf to administer the mosques on Judaism’s holiest site. At least part of the reason for that unusual move was the fact that many Orthodox rabbis felt that modern Jews (who are no longer able to conduct Para Adumah purifications) are in a state of ritual impurity and should not ascend the Temple Mount. Clearly, members of the dati leumi communities disagree with this conclusion and have been visiting. Yet “Discreet Jewish prayer continues on Temple Mount” (July 19) is the first time I have ever seen an article indicating that Jews can go to the Temple Mount to pray.
Of course, it is the Palestinians who have defiled the mosques on the Temple Mount, using them as places to store materials with which they harass Jews praying at the Western Wall and to attack Israeli police trying to protect people at prayer. The Waqf’s failure to preserve the sanctity of the mosques under their administration is a disgrace.
The main impediment to ending the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is Palestinian leaders’ seeking to replace the nation-state of the Jews with a Muslim-majority state. A first step toward signifying a change in that rejectionist stance would be the Waqf and Palestinian leaders working with Israel to make fair arrangements to accommodate both Muslim and Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount, as Israel has done at the Tomb of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs.
TOBY F. BLOCK
Atlanta, GA
Hollywood ending
Regarding “Cannes winner Lapid defends taking gov’t help” (July 20), it seems that the more that Israel is portrayed in a negative way, the more prizes the filmmaker receives.
Is this the way to go?
FREYA BINENFELD
Petah Tikva
Hates plastic plates
I was happy to read “Plan seeks to reduce use of disposable plastic by 40%” (July 20). These throw-away items are convenient but bad for one’s health (harmful chemicals can leach into foods from plastic) and bad for the environment.
I urge every reader to cut down or eliminate the use of disposable plastics now and not wait for new taxes to be imposed on their use.
Our family has not bought single-use plastics for years and we are happy and proud. Don’t be lazy – wash a few more dishes but feel a lot better about your lifestyle and your role in this world.
DVORA BECKER
Ashkelon
If you do decide to continue to buy Ben & Jerry’s ice creams, please at least don’t consume them using disposable dishes and spoons.
MARTHA ORTAL
Tel Aviv